By Jean Shaoul, wsws. org, May 20, 2010
The “proximity talks” between Israel and the Palestinians are only the latest cynical exercise launched by the Obama administration.
Washington views such “peace negotiations” as a necessary quid pro quo for the support of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia against Iran, under conditions where the Israel-Palestine conflict and the ongoing occupation of Iraq are explosive issues.
Despite the hype, the talks are nothing more than a continuation of US Middle East envoy George Mitchell’s shuttle diplomacy. The two sides will not even meet face to face to discuss the issues: the borders of any future state, the Palestinian refugees and their descendants’ right of return and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Hamas, which rules in Gaza, is not included in the talks.
In practice, any Palestinian “state” would be nothing more than two prisons surrounded by Israel and subject to repeated military invasions and economic blockades. These mini-states would be presided over by a corrupt clique that has grown phenomenally rich while workers and peasants lack jobs, health care, food and clean water. Under such conditions, the Palestinian business elite can only enforce their rule by authoritarian means.
That Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority and the PLO are willing to go along with this charade reflects their class character and confirms the PLO and Fatah, its dominant faction, as clients of US imperialism.
Benyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government is vehemently opposed to a Palestinian state.
Even as talks were proclaimed, Israel announced a further round of settlement construction. On Monday, Zvi Hauser, the Israeli cabinet secretary, told Army Radio, “Building is expected to begin soon in Har Homa…and Neve Yaakov, where [construction] bids have been issued.”
Peace Now said that renovation had begun on the construction of 14 homes in an old Israeli police station in East Jerusalem, which is to form part of a larger block of housing on the site.
On Wednesday, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, public security minister, announced in the Knesset that while demolitions had been postponed in recent months to enable Mitchell to get the peace process going, “That has now ended”.
Eli Yishai, the interior minister and leader of the religious Shas party, reportedly told his staff to resume planning for building in all parts of the city “as normal”.
Netanyahu insisted, in a speech to mark the 43rd anniversary of Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem, that building would not be frozen anywhere in Jerusalem.
Palestinians leaders in the West Bank called off direct negotiations after Israel’s military assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. According to Abbas, the acting president of the Palestinian Authority, he had agreed with then-prime minister Ehud Olmert all the security aspects of a peace deal. This included an arrangement whereby a NATO force under US command would monitor and secure the Jordan valley, the eastern border of a Palestinian state. They had also reached an agreement in principle to a land swap with Israel in return for the West Bank settlements. But Netanyahu’s government is opposed to ceding any land in return for the largest settlement blocks, Maale Adumim and Ariel.
The Palestinians refused to resume talks until Israel declared a complete freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For the past year, Mitchell and other US envoys have been shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, to try to convince the two parties to resume full-scale talks.
In March, however, Israel announced plans for 1,600 new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement during a visit to Jerusalem by Vice President Joe Biden. Netanyahu infuriated the While House by formally rejecting its demands for a freeze on settlements in East Jerusalem, although he did finally agree to delay the Ramat Shlomo project.
Washington was only able to get the talks going again after giving the Palestinians private assurances that President Obama was personally committed to the creation of a Palestinian state and would invite Abbas for talks in Washington.
The US said that no work would be done on the Ramat Shlomo project for two years and that Netanyahu would make some “goodwill gestures”, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners. Washington would even consider allowing the United Nations Security Council to condemn any “significant” new Israeli settlement activity by abstaining rather than vetoing it. All of these assurances were made verbally.
The State Department talked up Netanyahu’s statement “that there will be no construction at the Ramat Shlomo project for two years”, saying that it “helped to create an atmosphere that is conducive to successful talks”.
On this basis, the Arab League and the PLO endorsed the proximity talks. But Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners want nothing to do with any talks and have once again contradicted Obama. Netanyahu’s office denied delaying the Ramat Shlomo project, saying that construction there would begin “in a few years”, only because there are planning procedures left to complete. Furthermore, the 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank expires in the autumn.
Israel reacted furiously to the Palestinian Authority’s outlawing of Palestinian work in the settlements after the end of this year, and a ban on the sale of all goods and services from the settlements. Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, described the boycott on settlement products as “part of a continuous…campaign of incitement and de-legitimisation against Israel”.
The US has responded by warning both Israel and the Palestinians against any inflammatory actions in Jerusalem. “As we have said, if either side takes significant actions during the proximity talks that we judge would seriously undermine trust, we will respond to hold them accountable and ensure that negotiations continue”.
The State Department said, “Our policy on Jerusalem remains unchanged. The status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in permanent status negotiations between the parties”.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister and leader of the Labour Party, has called for a change in the coalition, which would mean Netanyahu ditching the ultra-orthodox and nationalist parties for Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, which favours a “two state” solution. Kadima has more seats in the Knesset than Netanyahu’s Likud party, but was unable to form a coalition.
The political calculations involved were made explicit by Barak. He told a Labour Party meeting, “A fundamental change is required in our relations with the US. We cannot do this without a far-reaching political initiative on our part”.
He added, “The Americans are trying to organize sanctions against Iran, are busy stopping North Korea, and other countries like Somalia and Yemen. Therefore, they expect Israel, as a friend, to mobilize in the areas in which it can help the overall effort—in other words, in a peace agreement with the Palestinians”.
Barak’s notion of a Palestinian state is one that suits the national interests of Israel alone. He seeks a demilitarised state, whose borders will be determined by Tel Aviv to ensure Israel’s security and a Jewish majority well into the future. This means annexing the major settlement blocks in the West Bank to Israel. He acknowledged that maintaining Israeli rule over the Palestinians would mean Israel would be an apartheid state. “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic”, he said. “If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state”.
But the type of Palestinian “state” he envisages is more akin to an Apartheid-era Bantustan.
Livni, for her part, made clear that maintaining Jewish exclusivity demanded “a specific decision on establishing a democratic Jewish state by reaching a settlement with the Palestinians.” Otherwise, “we shall turn into an Arab state”.
Thursday May 20, 2010 01:43
by Saed Bannoura – 
Peace and Justice Post 
Israel’s Flotilla ‘Investigation’
June 18, 2010The New York Times, whose regional bureau chief has a son in the Israeli military, reports that Israel has just appointed a panel charged with investigating its attack on an aid flotilla that killed nine aid volunteers, including a 19-year-old American.
Isabel Kershner, who is an Israeli citizen and has refused to answer questions about her possible family ties to the Israeli military, writes the report.
Kershner reports that the White House hailed the announcement of the panel as an “important step forward,” stating that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation.”
In her story, Kershner reports that the panel will include eminent Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Lord David Trimble as an observer, but omits the fact that Trimble is a leader of the newly formed pro-Israel organization “Friends of Israel” and is close to Netanyahu associate Dore Gold.
Irish journalist Patrick Roberts writes, “This is a little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.”
Kershner reports that the other foreign observer is Brig. Gen. Ken Watkins, former judge advocate general of Canadian Forces, but fails to mention that Watkins is known for stonewalling a 2009 House of Commons investigation into Afghan prisoner abuse.
One House of Commons member commented at the time about Watkins’ lack of cooperation with the investigation: “Obviously the cover-up continues.”
Kershner informs readers that the panel will be led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice, but fails to mention reports that he does not believe in such a panel and opposed foreign participation.
Kershner reports in the bottom half of her story that Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper calls the proposed panel a “farce,” but does not mention that this is a longstanding pattern for Israeli governmental investigations (and lack thereof) into military human rights abuses. For example:
° From 2001 through 2006 the Israeli State Attorney’s office received more than 500 complaints about abuse of interrogees. There was not a single criminal investigation.
° In 2005 Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a report entitled “Israeli military grants impunity when soldiers kill Palestinian civilians,” finding that although Israeli soldiers had killed at least 1,694 Palestinian civilians, including 536 minors, only one soldier had been convicted of “causing the death of a Palestinian.”
° In 2009 eleven Israeli human rights organizations released a joint report in which they called on the Israeli government to “Stop whitewashing suspected crimes in Gaza.”
° In 2010 B’Tselem found that the Israeli military’s “cover-up of phosphorous shelling in Gaza proves army cannot investigate itself.” An Amnesty International report concurred in this conclusion, finding that Israel’s investigations into Cast Lead had not met “international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness.”
In her story Kershner reports Netanyahu’s allegation that the blockade “is necessary to prevent Hamas from smuggling in weapons or materials needed to make them, and to weaken Hamas control.” She goes on to acknowledge that “there is a growing consensus abroad that the blockade has taken a toll mainly on civilians,” but neglects to report the fact that Israeli closures of Gaza preceded the election of Hamas and that the “toll” is massive and calamitous.
She also fails to include any of the vast evidence for such a consensus, for example:
“Nearly 99 percent of Gaza’s 4,000 fishermen are now considered either poor (making between $100 and $190 a month) or very poor (earning less than $100 a month); there are acute, sometimes lethal shortages of fuel, cash, cooking gas and other basic supplies; 98 percent of industrial operations have been shut down since 2007; and 3,500 families are still displaced from last year’s invasion due to Israel’s blockade on building materials.”
Although the Israeli government has failed to investigate itself honestly and thoroughly through the years, a great many respected international human rights organizations from Christian Aid to the Red Cross have done so, documenting a pattern of widespread human rights abuses by the Israeli military.
In 2006 independent researchers Patrick O’Connor and Rachel Roberts found that since fall 2000:
“[T]hree of the leading human rights organizations focusing on Israel/Palestine – Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Israeli organization B’Tselem – published 76 reports focused primarily on Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights, and four reports primarily focused on Palestinians abuses of Israeli or Palestinian rights. This weighting suggests that Israel has committed a disproportionate share of the human rights violations.”
During this time, the New York Times published two news stories on reports documenting Israeli human rights abuses and two stories on reports documenting Palestinian human rights abuses.
In other words, in its “even-handed” style, the New York Times covered fifty percent of the reports on human rights abuses committed by Palestinians, while covering under three percent of those detailing human rights abuses perpetrated by Israelis.
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Tags:Christian Aid, David Trimble a pro-Israeli, Israeli blockade of Gaza, Israeli Flottila ivestigation, Palestinian human rights abuses, proposed panel a farce, Red Cross
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